October 5, 2006 - George Lucas appears to be out of the big-budget movie business for good. The semi-retired Star Wars filmmaker recently granted an interview with industry insider mag Variety in which he reveals that he and his company Lucasfilm are finished making movies where a large financial investment is involved.

"We don't want to make movies," explains Lucas. "We're about to get into television. As far as Lucasfilm is concerned, we've moved away from the feature film thing because it's too expensive and it's too risky. I think the secret to the future is quantity." He adds that he would rather spend $200 million making 50-60 smaller movies than one big-budget film. "That's 120 hours as opposed to two hours. In the future market, that's where it's going to land, because it's going to be all pay-per-view and downloadable."

But Lucasfilm isn't getting out of the features game all together just yet. Lucas confirms that he still has Indiana Jones 4 in the pipeline. "Steve (Spielberg) and I are still working away, trying to come up with something we're happy with," he says. "Hopefully, in a short time, we will come to an agreement. Or something." At least he can't be accused of being overly optimistic. Lucas is also working on Red Tails, his long-in-development film about the Tuskegee airmen of WWII. Lucas says he plans to serve as executive producer on both pictures as well as the forthcoming live-action Star Wars TV series.

Once those projects are launched, the frequently-flanneled filmmaker revealed that he intends to focus on making "small movies, esoteric in nature."

Lucas also referred to the planned Star Wars animated TV series and hints that Lucas Animation may eventually make a feature film. "Right now we're doing television, which looks great. I'm very, very happy with it," he said. "And out of doing the animation, we're getting the skill set and the people and putting the studio in place so we can do a feature. But it's probably going to be another year before we have the people and the systems in place to do a feature film."

Whether or not you've enjoyed Lucas's recent movies, his impact on movie making and the movie business is absolutely unparalled. Here's just a short list of achievements behind the camera and behind the scenes:

Wrote and directed American Graffiti, which was made for $770,000 and grossed over $115 million domestically. AG helped to finance Star Wars.

Wrote, directed and produced Star Wars.

Created ILM, which is the leader in special effects.

Created Droid, a film editing program in 1980. This was later sold to a couple of guys who renamed it Avid. Avid video editing and Pro Tools are the industry leaders in Film Post Production and Music creation and production, respectively.

Created Pixar. Sold it to Steve Jobs for $10 million.

Launched the film careers of Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, as well as directors Ron Howard, Joe Johnston and Steve Sommers, to name a few.

He recently donated $175 million to the USC film school, his alma mater.

I welcome his vision for television, especially considering the piracy issue that the film industry will soon be facing.